Carrying A Gun...

[Gorgias]

Then from “Responsibility, Rehabilitation and Restoration: A Catholic Perspective on Crime and Criminal Justice” November 2000.

“As bishops, we support measures that control the sale and use of firearms and make them safer – especially efforts that prevent their unsupervised use by children or anyone other than the owner – and we reiterate our call for sensible regulation of handguns.”

So… hold on, then! The statement, in the 2000 document, is for control and safe use!

Followed in conclusion by “However, we believe that in the long run and with few exceptions – i.e. police officers, military use – handguns should be eliminated from our society.”

Actually, this isn’t a ‘conclusion’, but a footnote to the text you’ve quoted. Yet, in order to understand it, we need to look at it in context:

“However, we believe that in the long run and with few exceptions (i.e., police officers, military use), handguns should be eliminated from our society. ‘Furthermore, the widespread use of handguns and automatic weapons in connection with drug commerce reinforces our repeated “call for effective and courageous action to control handguns, leading to their eventual elimination from our society.”’ U.S. Catholic Bishops, New Slavery, New Freedom: A Pastoral Message on Substance Abuse (Washington, D.C.: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 1990), 10.”

So, what does this mean? It means that the context in which the bishops wish firearms to be “eliminated from society” is not only “in the long run” but also explicitly because of the “widespread use of handguns… in connection with drug commerce.” In other words, handguns aren’t evil – rather, the illicit use of handguns in the service of criminal activity is evil! So, the bishops of the USCCB believe that – not now, not tomorrow, but “in the long run” – the way to make the drug trade less lethal is via the elimination of handguns.

That’s a distinct and particular perspective. It’s not doctrinal, by any stretch, but rather, an expression about policy, in the context of criminal activity.

 

[po18guy]

I’m taking the meaning of ‘legitimate authority’ from Aquinas’ Summa Theologica regarding self-defense.

Your constant derailing aside, you seem to assume that excess is inherent in defense. Both Aquinas and the catechism (as well as civil and criminal law) state - extremely clearly - that defensive response must be in proportion to the threat and that the intent throughout must be to defend.

It is lawful for a man to intend killing a man in self-defense for those authorities that are charged with safeguarding the common good. This is the soldier and the judge. They are equipped thus with arms or instruments of death. Now for a private citizen to choose a gun for self defense, a gun being an instrument of death which is why it is being chosen over a knife or bat, begs the question does this constitute adopting a right over life and death from the outset? Does that sense of the power over another persons life and death, contribute to the overall culture of death that sees permanent defense as the highest manifestation of peace?

I am afraid that you have drifted far afield here. You are assigning malicious intent to the Church-defined “duty” to defend life. “Power”? It is YOU who seek power over others - the power to limit others’ ability to defend themselves! Whose side are you on? Do you claim that peace begins with the victim?

In a culture of life, trust and neighbourliness replace defense and how better to demonstrate those virtues than through deferring that ability to strike dead, to the public authorities who are charged with maintaining the lawfulness with very strict and considered instructions about how the common good is best served.

Tell that to the knife-wielding heroin junkie! Have you ever considered walking the streets of the inner city at night, preaching peace and trust to tattooed, drunken felons? If you survive that, your opinion of defense may have changed.

 

[po18guy]

So… hold on, then! The statement, in the 2000 document, is for control and safe use!

Actually, this isn’t a ‘conclusion’, but a footnote to the text you’ve quoted. Yet, in order to understand it, we need to look at it in context:

“However, we believe that in the long run and with few exceptions (i.e., police officers, military use), handguns should be eliminated from our society. ‘Furthermore, the widespread use of handguns and automatic weapons in connection with drug commerce reinforces our repeated “call for effective and courageous action to control handguns, leading to their eventual elimination from our society.”’ U.S. Catholic Bishops, New Slavery, New Freedom: A Pastoral Message on Substance Abuse (Washington, D.C.: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 1990), 10.”

So, what does this mean? It means that the context in which the bishops wish firearms to be “eliminated from society” is not only “in the long run” but also explicitly because of the “widespread use of handguns… in connection with drug commerce.” In other words, handguns aren’t evil – rather, the illicit use of handguns in the service of criminal activity is evil! So, the bishops of the USCCB believe that – not now, not tomorrow, but “in the long run” – the way to make the drug trade less lethal is via the elimination of handguns.

That’s a distinct and particular perspective. It’s not doctrinal, by any stretch, but rather, an expression about policy, in the context of criminal activity.

I am afraid that each of your salients points is lost on a condescending liberal.

 

[LongingSoul]

So… hold on, then! The statement, in the 2000 document, is for control and safe use!

“Challenging the culture of violence and encouraging a culture of life. All of us must do more to end violence in the home and to find ways to help victims break out of the pattern of abuse. As bishops, we support measures that control the sale and use of firearms and make them safer (especially efforts that prevent their unsupervised use by children or anyone other than the owner), and we reiterate our call for sensible regulation of handguns.”

That’s right. Control. Safe use. Most countries have gun control that dictate the control and safe use of firearms in general ***and in addition to that ***handguns are strictly regulated as exclusively used by police and security services.

Eliminating all guns is just silly and stupid. They are necessary for the public authorities that safeguard the common good, for rural purposes and for sporting purposes.

Actually, this isn’t a ‘conclusion’, but a footnote to the text you’ve quoted. Yet, in order to understand it, we need to look at it in context:

“However, we believe that in the long run and with few exceptions (i.e., police officers, military use), handguns should be eliminated from our society. ‘Furthermore, the widespread use of handguns and automatic weapons in connection with drug commerce reinforces our repeated “call for effective and courageous action to control handguns, leading to their eventual elimination from our society.”’ U.S. Catholic Bishops, New Slavery, New Freedom: A Pastoral Message on Substance Abuse (Washington, D.C.: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 1990), 10.”

So, what does this mean? It means that the context in which the bishops wish firearms to be “eliminated from society” is not only “in the long run” but also explicitly because of the “widespread use of handguns… in connection with drug commerce.” In other words, handguns aren’t evil – rather, the illicit use of handguns in the service of criminal activity is evil! So, the bishops of the USCCB believe that – not now, not tomorrow, but “in the long run” – the way to make the drug trade less lethal is via the elimination of handguns.

That’s a distinct and particular perspective. It’s not doctrinal, by any stretch, but rather, an expression about policy, in the context of criminal activity.

I think you must be reading that in a different way to the bishops themselves since in the body of the document under the heading Challenging the culture of violence and encouraging a culture of life they say ‘All of us must do more to end violence in the home and to find ways to help victims break out of the pattern of abuse. As bishops, we support measures that control the sale and use of firearms and make them safer (especially efforts that prevent their unsupervised use by children or anyone other than the owner), and we reiterate our call for sensible regulation of handguns.’

This points to the issue being addressed as problematic when guns are involved are domestic related ones. Not criminal drug trade ones.

Call me a condescending liberal if you like as someone has suggested, but the Bishops message is quite clearly addressing the lethal consequences of the vast number of guns in the community, that are not related to self defense, but are shall we say, colateral damage.

It’s a fair question to ask. Are privately owned handguns more trouble than they are worth? Are they really serving the common good of the US?

 

[pnewton]

I’m questioning the morality of dedicating a gun to self defense for the individual on the basis that they constitute a ‘legitimate authority’ responsible for the common good.

I will meet you half way, or maybe more. Yes, whether one takes on the responsibility of owning (or carrying) a gun is a moral decision, as are many decisions. Life is precious, both the life of others and one’s own life. However, it is a moral decision that must be made with prudence where the only person who can make that decision is that person. In this, we must all listen to our own conscience. We keep forming our conscience in greater holiness, while simultaneously educating ourselves to the pros and cons. Then we make the best decision we can. At that point, no one has the right to question it.

Yes, I agree that there can be a point (will be for most) where gun ownership is a bad idea, maybe even reckless to the point of being immoral. Likewise,* in theory,* society could reach the point where gun ownership can not easily be seen as a moral option. I do not think that will happen in my lifetime, if ever.

 

[Ender]

… we defer to the guidance and interpretation of doctrine of Church teachers in our day headed by the Pope.

You seem to think that truths “in our day” are different than than the truths taught in earlier centuries. The church, however, teaches that truth is eternal and does not change with time or place, and as far as taking guidance, the church counts among those to whom we should listen the Doctors of the Church, of which Bellarmine is one.

It is not accurate to dismiss the Conferences of Bishops guidance as ‘irrelevant opinions’. That is not giving due respect to the Catholic Conferences of Bishops role in the Magisterium.

What role would that be?*“No episcopal conference, as such, has a teaching mission; its documents have no weight of their own save that of the consent given to them by the individual bishops.” *(Cardinal Ratzinger)

To ‘trump’ the Bishops by quoting St Bellarmines words that were relevant 500 years ago in a climate of war (Italy had endured nearly constant warring for 70 years at time)… is not an acceptable Catholic tactic.

First, no bishop has claimed that carrying a weapon is immoral. Saying they would like to see handguns eliminated is a prudential opinion, it is not a moral doctrine. Second, Bellarmine’s words are as valid today as they were when he wrote them (see the earlier point about the timelessness of truth).

Owning a gun is not sinful. People aren’t morally culpable if they are abiding by their national laws in owning their gun even it is solely for self-defense.

So what are you arguing about? This is no more than Bellarmine said: we are morally justified in carrying weapons for self defense.

However, in relation to how such a law serves the common good in peacetime, it has a moral quality.

Where does the “moral quality” come from? Believing that a particular law will be beneficial to society does not make the law necessarily good, and confers on it no moral significance.

If the presence of guns for self defense in the community undermines the common good of all, the laws of the state responsible for the common good of all, must move towards eliminating that problem.

This changes the nature of the discussion. If you want to argue that the private ownership of guns is harmful to society that’s a reasonable position to take, but it has nothing whatever to do with the question of whether carrying a weapon for self defense is a moral act.

• Carrying a weapon for self defense is nowhere prohibited by church doctrine. To the contrary, she has recognized this as permissible.
• A state may justifiably prohibit the carrying of weapons, in which case the individual is bound by the laws of his state.

Ender

 

[LongingSoul]

I will meet you half way, or maybe more. Yes, whether one takes on the responsibility of owning (or carrying) a gun is a moral decision, as are many decisions. Life is precious, both the life of others and one’s own life. However, it is a moral decision that must be made with prudence where the only person who can make that decision is that person. In this, we must all listen to our own conscience. We keep forming our conscience in greater holiness, while simultaneously educating ourselves to the pros and cons. Then we make the best decision we can. At that point, no one has the right to question it.

Yes, I agree that there can be a point (will be for most) where gun ownership is a bad idea, maybe even reckless to the point of being immoral. Likewise,* in theory,* society could reach the point where gun ownership can not easily be seen as a moral option. I do not think that will happen in my lifetime, if ever.

The true target of my argument here is the law itself and the way in which the morality argument impacts on it. For a person to own a gun for self defense in a society where it is legal to do so, is not immoral. How he decides to use it is certainly subject to his personal moral reasoning even if it is not illegal to own it. No doubt you get cases in the US around this very dilemma where it was legal to shoot someone because you determined it to be self defense, but the law feels that your *legally made *personal evalutation, needs to be further subjected to some kind of moral examination in their capacities. Where it is difficult is the assessment of what constitutes ‘excessive force’ becomes confusing since it takes no real force at all to shoot someone. A squeeze of a trigger finger. If a person defends himself with fists or another instrument that has no ‘hidden’ power… there remains a sense of the force he himself is using to power the blow. A gun… even a child could bring down a giant.

The law must serve the common good. That is its first end. Nothing it enacts can forsake the common good. Appealing to a constitutional right to carry, cannot impact on how the law is made because nothing can diminish its obligation to serving the common good which is determined by reasoning and natural law.

I believe you will see stricter gun control in your lifetime (assuming you’re not already in your 90’s) because the notion of ‘the culture of death’ has already begun to unite religious and non-religious arguments, which can all put the common good of all people first and foremost in formulating laws. It’s an ingenious phrase and concept.

 

[LongingSoul]

(I know this is off topic but it’s underpinning the error in every subject Ender addresses.)

Originally Posted by LongingSoul
… we defer to the guidance and interpretation of doctrine of Church teachers in our day headed by the Pope.

When you read the bible, do you believe there is no deeper meaning in the words than the strict literal sense? No of course not. If that was all it was about why would we even need the Church?

When the Church teaches and guides regarding morals and faith, she carefully discerns the genus, that is the truth, being its first principle,… being conveyed with the words, understandings and circumstances relevant in those times … to then convey the genus, the first principle, faithfully to people via the words, understandings and circumstances in her own times.

On this topic of gun laws, and Aquinas’ teaching that the law must always and only serve the common good of its subjects,I find he himself explains the nature of a universal, eternal truth.

“Now in every genus, that which belongs to it chiefly is the principle of the others, and the others belong to that genus in subordination to that thing: thus fire, which is chief among hot things, is the cause of heat in mixed bodies, and these are said to be hot in so far as they have a share of fire. Consequently, since the law is chiefly ordained to the common good, any other precept in regard to some individual work, must needs be devoid of the nature of a law, save in so far as it regards the common good. Therefore every law is ordained to the common good. “ – Summa Theologica

newadvent.org/summa/2090.htm

Imagine that the one universal and eternal principle (genus) is like a clear transparent sheet imprinted with this first principle. Then imagine that from age to age other transparent sheets which are the laws and teachings pertaining to the times are laid over the first. Each age has to formulate its own laws and teachings that serve the common good of that age, in all its unique diversity but in doing so must conform to the imprint on that very first transparency.

What is important is being able to discern the first principle hidden under all the other transparencies with their own diagrams, some of which may be skewed, others more clearly conformed to that first principle. The first principle must provide the structure of each subsequent diagram in each subsequent age because it is universal and eternal in nature.

So devising my own example a little different but in the spirit of Aquinas, if in one age fire is the sacred element in food preparation since it is with fire that meat and vegies are made edible for humans, fire is rightly honoured as the highest principle in serving the common good of the diet. In the next age electricity becomes the means of preparing meat and vegies for the common good of the human diet and fire loses the sacred value it previously had in serving the common good of the human diet, but we can more clearly see that heat is what is more truly reflecting that first universal principle of cooking. Heat conveys the highest principle.

You are trying to say, the first principle is fire because that is what they said 500 years ago and that has to be the sacred element then, now and for all time because doctrines can never ‘change’. What the Church helps us with, is understanding the true nature of a *first principle that gives structure to the laws or teachings *that are there to serve the common good of the people of the age, and can never change. That structure established on the first clear transparency on the pile of transparencies is what is universal and eternal… not the interpretations of it that are specific to the age it serves. From age to age, a thing can differ and even seem to fundamentally conflict… however it is actually compatible and similar by virtue of the structure that is supporting it that serves the true highest good.

So when you say “You seem to think that truths “in our day” are different than the truths taught in earlier centuries” … I say “no I don’t. The truth remains the same and is interpreted to most fully reflect itself in the formulations pertinent to the age it is serving.

 

[DMC12]

let me tell you something, I live in Mexico, where gun control is very strict, yet some days ago a guy was killed like 1 street away from my home.

Criminals here dont use legal weapons, they get them from illegal places, yet you ask that the government takes our weapons? do you realise that those weapons are there to defend us from those that are supposed to defend us if the case is given? yeah it is pretty bad that those shooting happen, and maybe if in other places they controled weapons better we would be safer, but right now, at least from Mexico I can tell you that taking our weapons from us is a terrible and I could even say sinful action.

 

[LongingSoul]

let me tell you something, I live in Mexico, where gun control is very strict, yet some days ago a guy was killed like 1 street away from my home.

Criminals here dont use legal weapons, they get them from illegal places, yet you ask that the government takes our weapons? do you realise that those weapons are there to defend us from those that are supposed to defend us if the case is given? yeah it is pretty bad that those shooting happen, and maybe if in other places they controled weapons better we would be safer, but right now, at least from Mexico I can tell you that taking our weapons from us is a terrible and I could even say sinful action.

Were the ‘illegal places’ made possible by the abundance of guns imported from the US?

You are at the forefront of this horrible violence and in a terrible position. What is peace going to cost?

What your country has to determine at the level of government… is whether you are ‘at war’. In this situation, it becomes prudent and necessary to be competently defensive. The laws then should conform to the conditions of a ‘just war’.

If your country views the illegal use of guns and drugs as civilly criminal activity… she should address it with civil measures using police, security and even sometimes internal military measures.

To resort to arming civilians against criminal activity … as a basic right, according to global opinion and to the teachings of the Church, is detrimental to the common good of the citizens of that country. Is there truly the belief that being personally armed is going to end the warlike atmosphere? Or is arming civilians going to put the country into a permanent ‘brink of civil war’ mentality in the way of the US?

The Christian message promotes peace. There are so many sad instances of human sacrifice that have ushered in ultimate peace. Peace is worth the sacrifice, maybe not for me or you… but for our descendents and the generations to come.

 

[DMC12]

I don’t know, i mean it would be great that no criminal were able to get any kind of weapon, but the thing is they do, since like i told you they have illegal weapons, here you can’t own anything bigger than a .22 in handguns, yet you see them with bigger ones. and i dont think taking the guns from people will make anything better.

in your country the selfdefense is not an allowed reason to have a gun, here is one of the main ones, we live in diferent places.

the real answer lies in a cultural change and many other stuff, but in the meantime i see the disarming of people on such violent places dangerous, unless the disarming begins with criminals, then the disarming of honest people would be needlessly, since those who own guns would be just for fun or work, like for hunting or shooting at targets.